I have good short term visual memory, probably better than average. On the other hand, my medium and long-term memory, of any kind, are just atrocious, much, much worse than average.

For this reason, the following is a recurring situation for me: upon encountering a kanji for the first time, I learn the association with its keyword without any effort (it's all instant visual recall), and I get it right on all my initial reviews, until the interval between reviews gets to be longer than about 4 weeks. Then when the next review comes (after a > 4 week hiatus), not only I don't remember the kanji, oftentimes I don't even remember ever having studied its keyword at all!. It's as if I'd encountered it for the first time.

Therefore, I decided that I needed to devote more time and effort to devising, writing down, and learning the stories.

This is, of course, agrees exactly with what Heisig says in his books, so nothing new here.

But still, even after putting much effort on my stories, due to my good short-term visual memory, I remember new kanji easily in a purely visual way, and I don't remember the stories! So during my reviews I often find myself wondering whether to fail a kanji that I remembered correctly, but whose story I did not remember at all.

What should I do? Should I fail such cards, or just pass them with a [HARD] grade? Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

If you go to settings - deck properties - advanced on anki you can fine tune the timing of your reviews.

For the most part, I would say YES, FAIL THEM. There are some kanji that you probably know so well (from before RTK, if you studied kanji then) that you don't need stories for them (for me, one was "Now"), but for most of the others, your long term recollection ability is going to be based on remembering the stories now.

Later on in the process you will want to be losing the keyword-->story step in favor of keyword-->kanji, but if this is happening too early then you won't be able to remember all 2042, let alone kanji beyond that.

That's pretty standard experience, and like you say something Heisig warns about in the book. Fail them, re-study and come up with a memorable story, and remember this lesson about visual memory...

EDIT: It also helps to come up with your own stories. I only rely on the RevTK stories when I can't come up with my own.

I agree with mafried.

I think that the reason RtK worked so well for Heisig is because the stories were his own, the keywords were chosen by him, and he did all the research. When recalling kanji he wasn't trying to remember obscure stories, he thought of the fist thing that popped into his head.

I suggest actually doing something a bit different.

Stop actually looking at the kanji when you review -- the other side of your card should just have the story and the list of keywords for the primitives. That might help you remember the stories as opposed to the visual representation of the kanji...

When you review, don't try to recall a kanji -- just try to recall the list of primitive words.

torokun Wrote:I suggest actually doing something a bit different.

Stop actually looking at the kanji when you review -- the other side of your card should just have the story and the list of keywords for the primitives. That might help you remember the stories as opposed to the visual representation of the kanji...

When you review, don't try to recall a kanji -- just try to recall the list of primitive words.

Wow, that's a radical idea. (No pun intended!) Thanks!

gfb345 Wrote:I suggest actually doing something a bit different....

Good advice!

The first time I did RTK, with real flashcards, I had the kanji upside down on the back, and small enough so that I didn't have to look at it if I didn't want to...

It took me sometime to understand what imaginary memory meant at the beginning.

But the stories are only meant only for building a image of the kanji. There should be no problem remembering the story. With Heisig method not many forget the story, but the connection to the keyword. For most kanji the story comes back to mind right after you see the kanji and its elements.

I have learned plenty of kanji just with a image of something absurd or funny or both. For example my story for husk didn't even have a story at first, it was just image of samurai sitting in a giant nut husk. The samurai is wearing a weather vane and the husk has missiles attached to it.

its basically just the image, and the story I added later was mainly to help people understand why hes sitting on the nut husk and possibly making it easier to remember.

stories are only ment to help people create the image to your mind, and the image is really the thing you should remember.